Shock Corridor

Shock Corridor
1963
Director: Samuel Fuller
Starring: Peter Breck, Constance Towers

Movies like Shock Corridor reinforce in me the notion that giving a picture a second chance is sometimes the best thing in the world. My initial impression of this movie several years ago could be summed up by “halfway decent B picture.” Now I feel as though I have more of a handle on what Samuel Fuller is all about as a writer-director, and seeing Shock Corridor for the second time, I enjoyed it much more.

The slightly hackneyed plot is all about Johnny Barrett (Breck), a reporter willing to do anything it takes to win a Pulitzer Prize. The way he’s planning on getting his hands on it is by coercing his stripper girlfriend Cathy (Towers) into pretending to be his sister, then having her commit him to a mental hospital on the trumped up charges of incestual fetishism. Once there, he can investigate the three mentally disturbed witnesses to a murder at said hospital. Everything goes according to plan, except for the wee little hiccup that Johnny starts to lose his own grasp on reality the more time he spends as a patient.

To me, a Samuel Fuller film means grotesque beauty, great play with high contrast lighting and shadows, uncomfortable situations, and characters who are played to absolute extremes. With that in mind, it makes total sense that Fuller made a movie set in a mental hospital. I can almost feel his giddiness, rubbing his sweaty palms together and giggling at the insanity (pun intended) he’s about to unleash. This attitude just leaps off the screen.

The Black Cat

Back after a weekend in DC.

The Black Cat
1934
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, David Manners, Julie Bishop

It’s good for me to watch a movie like The Black Cat every now and then. Sometimes I get really caught up in watching the great Hollywood classics, or I’ll only want to rewatch films I love from the Golden Age. As such, I tend to have a very rosy view of Old Hollywood. For that reason, then, it’s good for me to see something like The Black Cat, because it reminds me that classic Hollywood made just as much crap as modern Hollywood.

Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi) is in a bus crash with a honeymooning couple (Manners and Bishop). Wounded, they go to Werdegast’s old friend’s house, Poelzig (Karloff). But Poelzig isn’t exactly an old friend, and Werdegast’s visit isn’t exactly innocent in its intentions. Enter some story about the house being built on a WWI battle site, a hellish prison, and, of course, satanic cultists, and the movie wraps up.

Oh yeah, and they mention black cats. Like, twice.

Through the Olive Trees

Through the Olive Trees
1994
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Starring: Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Hossein Rezai, Zarifeh Shiva, Tahereh Ladanian

Apparently I’m on a bit of an Iranian film tear. I don’t care, I think they’re pretty damn awesome.

Kiarostami is rapidly becoming a new fascination with me. Through the Olive Trees is the second film I’ve seen by him; the first, Taste of Cherry, I saw about a month ago and found it a fascinating contemplation on life and death in the modern world. Through the Olive Trees is not as profound as Taste of Cherry, more resembling a comedy than a philosophical drama, but it still has a significant resonance.

There has been an earthquake in Iran. A filmmaker (Keshavarz, an obvious stand-in for Kiarostami himself) is shooting a film about how lives have been affected by the tragedy, and he casts locals who have suffered themselves. Problems arise when the young man he casts as the lead, Hossein (Rezai), admits that he is in love with the young woman cast as Hossein’s wife, Tahereh (Ladanian). Thing is, Tahereh’s grandmother is dead set against the match and Tahereh herself won’t even speak to Hossein – not even on set, speaking the lines. Ah, young love – ever the enemy of a filmmaker’s vision.

The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush
1925
Director: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Georgia Hale

When I first started watching classic film and had it in my head to start delving seriously into silent films, I figured the best place to start would be Chaplin. Comedy is universal, and Chaplin is immortal. Starting off my journey through silent film with Charlie Chaplin was a very good idea, and The Gold Rush proved to me that a movie made more than eighty years ago can still make people laugh.

The Lone Prospector (Chaplin as his Little Tramp) heads to into the wilderness and meets up with another prospector, Big Jim (Swain). The two hungrily sweat out a Yukon snowstorm in a small cabin, where Chaplin immediately shows off some tremendously famous comic set pieces. After the storm, the prospector heads into a town where he falls in love with the local dance hall girl Georgia (Hale), despite her indifference to him. Later, he meets up with Big Jim again, but this time, he feels the urgency to find gold, as he is convinced that if he strikes it rich, he can win Georgia’s heart.

Gabbeh

Gabbeh
1996
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Starring: Shaghayeh Djodat, Abbas Sayah

An old couple stop at a spring to wash their gabbeh, or woven rug. Magically, a young woman (Djodat) seems to spring from the gabbeh, pronouncing her name to be Gabbeh. She tells the old couple the story depicted on the rug, which is also the story of how she ran away from her clan with her lover. Her father is perpetually making her wait to marry her lover, a man who is never seen close up but instead communicates through the cry of the wolf, and eventually, Gabbeh must break free of her clan. The old couple both listen to and participate in her story.

There is certainly a simple lyricism in this film. Makhmalbaf gracefully shows us a wheat field blowing in the wind, then cuts to a shot of women weaving a gabbeh, then back to a rippling stream. It has been called poetic, and I find that to be an apt description. While the story is more or less straightforward, Makhmalbaf intercuts cleverly, going from a shot of yellow flowers to one of making yellow dye, to yellow yarn, to a yellow canary. When Gabbeh’s mother is giving birth, we see instead a hen laying an egg. When Gabbeh finally decides to run away with her suitor, we mainly see a baby goat standing on its legs for the very first time. There is constant association of man with nature, and the sounds of nature underline nearly every scene.

True Grit

True Grit
2010
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon

I admit, I had high expectations for True Grit based on No Country for Old Men. I consider the latter to be one of the finest films to come out of Hollywood in the last decade; it’s thrilling, it’s taut, it’s ambiguous, and it’s just all-in-all fantastic. When I heard the Coen brothers were taking on another western, I was excited. After finally seeing True Grit, a remake whose original I have not seen, I have to say that, while having its own merits, it does not live up to its predecessor.

Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) arrives in an Arkansas town hellbent on avenging the death of her father. She is no-nonsense, smart, and stubborn, and she quickly enlists the drunken and slovenly U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to aid her in this quest. She insists on joining him in pursuit of her father’s murderer, however, and along the way, they also pick up Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Damon). The three of them form a sort of Odd Trio, bickering and arguing all the way while they track down the man responsible.

I tend to be mostly hit, sometimes miss when it comes to the Coen brothers. I believe they have made some truly brilliant films, some really great, very likeable films, but I also find some of them to be too quirky, too self-conscious, and too wrapped up in their own oddity for their own good. Usually, when watching a Coen brothers film, you are highly aware that you are watching a Coen brothers film; they have a surreal style, a way with words and characters, that is recognizable. While True Grit is, by all accounts, a pretty damn restrained Coen brothers movie, their style peeks through, mostly in the dialogue and minor characters.

A Hard Day's Night

I am amused that the title, in French, is "Four Boys in the Wind."

A Hard Day’s Night
1964
Director: Richard Lester
Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell

Perhaps initially popularized by Elvis and propagated in this day and age by such fine cinematic fare as Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Hannah Montana: The Movie, and Katy Perry: Part of Me, the movie industry has never shied away from capitalizing on the hot pop music act of the day. These films tend not to make for incredibly profound viewing, and A Hard Day’s Night is no exception. However, it does benefit from having Beatles’ music in it (while not exactly a devotee, I enjoy their stuff) along with some fantastic lines of dialogue.

The plot, such as it is, focuses on the Lads from Liverpool getting to and preparing for a televised gig. At the beginning, they pick up Paul’s grandfather (Brambell) – no, his other grandfather, not the one that lives with him at home – and let him tag along. Problem is, granddad likes to run amok, so keeping tabs on him keeps the boys on their toes. Numerous musical numbers pop up along the way.

The main impression I got when I watched this the first time (about four years ago) was that of total and utter incoherence. Oh, you were looking for a plot that actually developed from point A to point B? I’m sorry, you clearly looked in the wrong place. In terms of cogency, A Hard Day’s Night falls somewhere between an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and El Topo. All of which is to say, the film feels as if it’s barely held together at the seams, as if it’s about to careen over a cliff. The first time I saw this, the lack of logic rather bothered me, and it was all I focused on. I admit I left with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.